Second Life

This video "Orientation in Second Life" showed various aspects of second life as well as how new users are introduced. The biggest thing that I took away from this video was that there are in fact so many ways that certain things can be explained and how people respond differently to these. Not all people understand certain explanations and this video goes through the many ways that they explain how to use second life. Everyone learns differently and thus there need to be many ways available to people as instructions to use things. Second Life does this and provides instructions varying from a manual to a video instruction. I think this is beneficial to people and is a must with a product like this.

The way I relate to this is in my life is in a very big way. Sometimes reading instructions does not necessarily sink in from me. I really saw this when I bought my eportfolio for school. Reading the instructions for this product, I just did not get. I thought I was reading it right and I wasn't. I finally asked for help and with the walk through I was able to finally understand. Also in my technology for teachers class, the way professor Fryer includes video tutorials with the lessons is very beneficial to me. I find myself more of a visual learner and being able to see him go through it step by step specifically really helps me. With second life, they are really appealing to the masses as providing more than just one way to be able to learn how to use their product.

With this video it became really apparent how differently people learn. I can use this in my teaching style by being aware of this. Not everyone can just read directions and know what to do some people have to be shown or to be told out loud. Second life really realized that and put it into action. They also made their user interface easy to use. It really is about simplifying things so that they are accessible to people and they can get the most out of them. As a teacher I can use that too. I don't want to make things too difficult so that no one understands and I spend all my time explaining. No one gains from that, but if I simplify then everyone is able to get the most out of it and feel successful for it.